


we weren't just pretend

by Lizzen, th_esaurus



Category: Actor RPF, Game of Thrones RPF, Jonas Brothers, Rocketman (2019) RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 16:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19360303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: Sophie texts —dick are you bringing a straight boy as your date to my weddingHe replies —No, I’m bringing a straight friend as my plus one to your wedding.





	we weren't just pretend

**Author's Note:**

> _From the authors of the third most popular Evanstan..._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, this was an insane union of our fandoms and we were ever so pleased to write this together. Reminder, of course, that this is all 100% fiction. 
> 
> Except for the part about Coors Light.

He doesn’t even think twice about it. It’s just that Taron’s the mate he’s been hanging out with most lately: filming, press tour, post-press, and then spat back into the real world again. He checks the time - a hellish early hour at the gym, sweat still prickling out under his hair even after a shower - and figures it’s early enough in LA not to be abysmally late in Wales. So he calls. 

“Wotcher, Dickie,” Taron says jovially after the second ring. 

“Mate, you free on the twenty-eighth?”

“God knows. Let’s say yes.”

“Want to come to Sophie’s weird wedding thing?” Richard asks, rubbing a towel over the back of his neck.

“With you? Wait, isn’t she already married?”

Richard rolls his eyes. “Right, it’s like—the second marriage for all the people who were shut out of the first. I dunno.”

“ _Hollywood_ ,” Taron proclaims, faux-cynicism. “Sure, why the hell not?”

They exchange details and dates, Richard pokes at a lingering drip of water in his right ear, and that’s the end of it. Nothing significant, nothing improper. He emails Sophie the info at her very specific RSVP address, and then forgets about it for two full days. 

*

He has a decade-old Whatsapp group called _The Wolf Pack_ that’s seen an inordinate amount of tears, tantrums and wildly inappropriate jokes over the years, and when Richard’s phone pings in his pocket, it’s Maisie announcing to the Pack:

_wait, i thought taron was straight???_

Richard assumes this is directed at him. 

_He is._

Sophie - always, _always_ online in tandem with Maisie - follows up within seconds.

_dick are you bringing a straight boy as your date to my wedding_

Richard—

Richard abruptly sees where he might have gone wrong here. Not made a mistake, nothing as dire as that. Just a misunderstanding.

_No, I’m bringing a straight friend as my plus one to your wedding._

Maisie and Sophie seem to be typing for an absolute age, and then, unnervingly, neither of them send any reply at all. 

*

It’s not a red carpet affair, of course, but kids these days like to dress. He calls up his girl at Hugo Boss and she asks the usual questions. He can hear her typing his answers, the clatter of manicured nails on a laptop. “Who are you going with, and would you like us to work on her dress?” she says. 

He blinks a few times and then lies: “It’s just me.” 

Lying means something, he’s very much aware. “It’s just me and one of my mates, I dunno who he’ll wear.” 

She clears her throat. “Hmm.” She types in a few more notes, silent for a moment longer than he feels is necessary. 

“Is that all?” he asks, short. Uncomfortable. 

“We’ll be in touch,” the sound of the click, and the sound of his heart beating. 

There’s nothing wrong. He’s done nothing wrong. And yet—

*

He picks Taron up at Charles de Gaulle, their flights a scant hour apart. Both of them are wearing the exact same under-the-radar uniform: baseball cap, shades, Converse. Taron’s hat says _ROCKETMAN_ in silvery glitter so he’s not exactly trying to be incognito. 

A couple of paps snap their greeting hug - Taron’s big, dry kiss on his cheek - but Taron’s cologne and neck smell so warm and familiar when Richard holds him that he can’t be bothered to care. 

“I’m starving,” Taron says, his hand lingering on the small of Richard’s back.

“The options are basically bread or bread.”

“Fuck off. No cockles?”

Richard, immediately craving neeps and tatties for the first time since he moved to glorious America, just laughs. He knows a place nearby that does top notch mimosas, even if the croissants leave something to be desired. Actually, he’d been on a date there not that long ago. French press for Bodyguard, got chatting to one of the sound crew. Long neck, Gallic accent. Blowjobs after brunch, nothing fancy.

Well, anyway, he takes Taron. There’s nothing weird about that. It’s _breakfast_. 

*

“Did you get me a room?” Taron says, shovelling raspberries into his mouth with his fingertips, and Richard’s heart stutters. Because no, he didn’t, he didn’t know he was supposed to. 

But the words pop out: “I have a suite.” And Taron doesn’t even flinch or ask questions. 

It’s not like Taron can’t get a last minute room somewhere, Richard thinks. He doesn’t have to—

They’re not teen girls having a fucking sleepover. Alcopops and nail-painting. They’re just mates - coworkers - sharing a hotel room. That’s completely normal. Completely fine.

*

To be fair, Richard would’ve been happy with a bog-standard Travelodge, but his agent reserved one of the Westin’s luxury suites, and with Taron in tow, he’s not complaining. There’s a massive couch, a king bed that could fit a small family, and a juliet balcony from which he can just see the light glinting off the Musee D’Orsee’s greenhouse roof. 

Taron hangs up his suit in Richard’s closet without commentary, kicks off his boots and lets them fall where they may near the bed.

*

They’ve a day to kill in Paris, and it’s not exactly a hard place to pass time in. Not exactly strenuous company, either.

Taron vaguely knows the way to some swanky patisserie, a tea-room for passably polite tourists and fashionable old women who’ve been living here since Montmartre was a veritable den of sin. He disclaims slightly defensively that technically, _technically_ , he isn’t yet training to claw his Kingsman body back, so they order four huge, glistening pastries and share. 

Richard remembers immediately how easy it is to be in Taron’s company. Even when they’d spent hours yelling at each other on set, Taron screaming himself red-pocked and hoarse, he’d always go in for the most earnest of hugs after Dexter called cut. Sighing out his anger and slumping into Richard’s shoulder. “You make me feel so safe,” he’d mumbled once, honestly, and Richard just laughed with low disbelief.

“I could say the exact same about you,” he had said then. And laughed again when Taron—

Taron looks up at him with chantilly on his top lip. “What’re you smiling about?” he asks, grinning.

Richard swipes at the cream on Taron’s mouth with his thumb. Carefully, then, wipes it on his serviette.

*

They wander, sugar high and boyish, through the grounds of the Louvre.

“Hold up,” Taron says, stopping abruptly, a note of keen urgency in his voice. Richard halts, blinking. “Wait. Wait.”

He looks around, almost glucose-drunk. “Wait. Is this _whole fucking thing_ the Louvre?”

“Oh my god,” Richard manages.

“Like, it’s not just the pyramid? Really honest-to-god this whole fucking place?”

“Do they not have basic education in Aberystwyth?”

“Oi! Better than _Glasgow,_ I’ll bet,” Taron snaps back, laying on the broadest Scottish accent imaginable. Then he grins, brilliant white, and darts away from Richard, weaving through tour groups and art kids, begging to be chased. 

Richard rolls his eyes, and his dimples ache from smiling. 

*

They smuggle a 12-pack of Leffe into the hotel and order up an ice bucket, and get slowly, languorously drunk through the afternoon. Paris, blissfully, doesn’t understand the concept of no smoking, but out of habit and deference to Taron’s ongoing struggle to quit, Richard lights up by the balcony doors, blowing his haze of smoke out into the city. 

Taron finds Moominvalley, flicking through the TV, and gives a delighted little yelp, even though it’s dubbed in French. He puts on his Moomin voice and pulls a serious, cartoonish face, inventing ever-more lascivious dialogue, following Moomintroll’s funny little waddling motions and effing and blinding until Richard is choking on his cigarette with laughter.

More beer; frites and mayo. 

“Tell me what I’m about to walk into here,” Taron asks suddenly. “Do you know anything about these boys? It’s gonna be Mickey Mouse or a pile of cocaine? Both?”

Richard shrugs. He met Nick at some Armani show a couple years back; small talk only, and mostly about fashion. Joe was at the Gala this year with Sophie, but kept quiet. Starstruck, perhaps, or punch drunk in love. He can’t remember if there’s another brother.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “Didn’t they wear purity rings at one point?”

“Purity _what_?”

In the name of research, they fall into a YouTube-sized hole and end up watching an embarrassingly old episode of Hannah Montana featuring, frankly, three barely familiar children. Richard casts it from his phone up onto the big TV, and Taron squeezes in next to him on the sofa, despite its vastness, leaning forward, open-mouthed, like he’s completely gripped by this Disney disaster. He is absolutely charmed. 

“Your little sister is marrying that?” he says, with such a smile. 

“The Queen in the North can do as she likes,” Richard retorts, stressing an accent. Then: “I can’t imagine Soph marrying for anything less than love.” He swallows. “The kind that really matters, anyway.” 

Taron is quiet for a moment, watching the screen. “She’s 23?”

“Mmm,” he says, thinking about how dumb he was at that age. Hungry, ready for anything. Fucking girls exclusively because that’s what he knew. What he thought he knew. 

Unhappy. 

“It’s Sophie’s world and we just live in it,” Richard says absently, thumbing through YouTube now to set up a better queue: gig clips, JONAS, awkward boyish interviews.

“You stayed close, huh?” Taron says, almost to himself.

“We all did,” Richard shrugs. “Practically grew up together. Came of age.” 

He and Kit and Alfie, of course, were always thickest. Same age, same path. Alfie a little more prepared, having witnessed his sister’s up-and-downfall, but Richard and Kit trying to forge a shortcut through the brush, hacking at the unknown until it resembled something familiar. 

Richard and Kit—

“Mm,” Taron says, stretching out and then shifting on the couch — shifting to lie on his back, his head against Richard’s thigh. A warm glow. “Lucky,” he says softly. “Me and Colin text sometimes, but— I don’t keep up with anyone, really.”

Something safe in that, Richard thinks. And something lonely. “You’ll keep up with me now,” he says, resolute.

Taron looks up at him, and his eyes are so blue, so open. Richard’s heart seizes just a little, just enough. 

He puts his hand in Taron’s hair - freshly trimmed, he can tell by the bristles - but doesn’t move it. Doesn’t—stroke his hair or anything. That would be weird. He’s just being reassuring.

“I could blow you, if you want,” Taron says. Says it easy as breathing.

He stares, his mind blank. Taron stares back, something fearless in his expression and then— and then he waggles his eyebrows suggestively and the word “Hilarious,” tumbles out of Richard’s mouth. He looks back at his phone to adjust the queue. Taron chuckles and looks away, looks at the TV. And Richard slowly, so very slowly, lets out a breath as silently as he can. 

He’s straight, he thinks. 

He’s my friend, he thinks. 

*

Kit once—

But it never— 

*

He can’t sleep. 

The wedding is tomorrow and everyone’s going to be there and he’s excited, thrilled, but he needs to know if—

(Kit didn’t tell him. He found out Kit checked into Privé-Swiss because of a goddamn news alert on his phone.)

He could ask himself, Kit’s on speed dial, but he’s a coward and rehab takes your phone away anyway and he only has Rose’s email. 

He could ask Sophie but he doesn’t want—

 _Is Kit coming_ , he sends in the middle of the night.

Alfie’s awake because he immediately sees the alert that he’s texting back. 

 _Can’t_ is the reply. 

He can hear Taron roll over on the sofa, the blankets shifting half off him, and Richard presses the low light of his phone against his chest to smother it. He thinks about asking Taron if he’s up, and then realises he doesn’t actually want to talk about it at all. Just sort of wants Taron’s consciousness, his company, but that’s harder to explain. Simpler to let him sleep.

Taron, too, burned out. The business is a killer. Richard remembers that low ebb after they wrapped last year very clearly: Taron’s dark eyes, watery with fatigue, midnight Skype-calls, Richard’s careful advice, all the mistakes he made after Bodyguard that he doesn’t want Taron to stumble into. He always thought his guidance was trite and unhelpful, stuff Taron already knew, and he apologised more than once for being patronising, but—

“No, no way,” Taron had said, tired but smiling. “You don’t even know how much I appreciate it.”

Taron got better. People get _better_. 

Kit will—

Richard shoves his phone under his pillow without checking it again. 

*

There’s a shower running when he wakes up, and the sound of feet against wet tile. Strong smell of coffee near the door and Richard pads over to see the remains of coffee service delivered. Still hot but only a cup left. _Bastard_ , he thinks fondly. Pours in too much milk. 

Sunlight is streaming in and he feels— he feels himself again. His youth and youthful indiscretions further away. A polite distance, manageable. Sleep is a healer. 

Taron opens the bathroom door and a waft of damp heat floods the room. Hard not to look, hard not to get an eye full. Such an expanse of skin with just one white hand towel over his dick. A saucy, toothy grin. Richard forces himself to look at Taron’s eyes, tilts his head. 

The towel drops as Taron breezily rubs it over his shoulders and neck, and Richard fights every damning reaction, hopes Taron doesn’t know any of his tells. 

“I was just thinking,” Taron says, walking up closer and reaching for Richard’s cup. A familiar familiarity but it feels different like this. Somehow. “What if we stayed longer? I have fuck all to do right now. Let’s have a proper holiday.” He takes a long drink of coffee before giving it back. “Maybe out of the city?”

Richard has meetings in two days; his agent, a director. It’s at Pinewood, and Pinewood means Bond. He could put them off. He really could. 

“I—”

“I can call someone today and there’ll be a suitcase here tomorrow. Don’t—”

“Fine,” Richard says. “Yes,” Richard says. And he looks down. “God,” Richard says, rolling his eyes.

He swivels, unable to manage the smug, indulgent look on Taron’s face. 

*

He’s straightening his tie when Taron strides in, places an opulent ring box on the sink counter and starts to carefully remove the little gold hoop in his ear. He’s been wearing that, Richard’s noticed, since filming wrapped. Nothing gaudy, but he got his goddamn ear pierced and he’s apparently not about to let it close up now the show’s over and done with. 

Richard watches him pull out Elton’s rock from the box, and carefully put it in. The diamond is decades old, eagerly purchased with a rising star’s first blush with real, outrageous money. It’s shimmering and obvious in his ear, beautiful against the velveteen navy of his Tom Ford suit. 

Richard feels coarse and underdressed; awkward. He examines his stubble in the mirror, rubbing his jaw. “Should I have shaved, d’you think?” 

“Nah,” Taron says easily. He leans over and lets his knuckles slide for a quick moment against Richard’s rough cheek. “Looks good, man. You always look good.”

The touch is brief, but electric, and Richard has to blink. Takes a step back without thinking about it, and curses himself. _God, don’t lose your cool_ , he thinks. Taron watches him, a look of unease, confusion before: “You know you’re gorgeous,” he says with a careful laugh and he swans out of the bathroom, his footsteps light. 

*

“Is that—” Taron asks in the lobby and Richard looks up from his phone to see, truly, the world’s most beautiful woman walking towards them, her smile bright and brilliant.

Richard feels just a slight bit frozen; he hasn’t seen her in person in a while and there’s a new confidence to her that is incredible to see. “Yeah,” he says absently, lost in memory. “Emilia,” he says, softly, and she’s touching his cheek before giving him the warmest hug. 

Taron is quick on the uptake, kissing the back of her hand, swapping polite introductions. Richard is abruptly reminded that Taron exists in an utterly separate part of his life, compartmentalised; he knows none of these people that Richard has such a storied history with. He'd always appreciated that before, but—

“I guess it’ll just be like this all day,” Taron says, cheerily. “What makes a Game of Thrones quorum anyway, with a cast like yours?”

Emilia smirks. “Kit’s wedding was particularly something.”

Richard nods, remembering; ignores a clench in his thigh muscle. 

“Is Kit coming?” Taron says, looking up suddenly. “I haven’t seen him in—oh fuck, he was filming some zombie fight in Ireland for a month and had to come back for press with me on Testament. God, that was ages ago, we were children. How's he holding up?”

“Oh,” Emilia says, her face immediately a mask, and she looks at Richard.

It’s a little easier, this conversation, having done Rocketman, having spent hours and hours with Elton and David. Having heard Taron speak eloquently about rehabilitation and its importance. “Such a fucking hard decision,” he remembers Taron saying. “But it pays such dividends.”

"Got it," Taron says now, nodding sternly, when Richard explains.

"He's gonna be fine, though," Richard says, a strangely hollow-sounding platitude. Taron is looking at him, and Emilia isn't, and both of those make him twitchily uncomfortable. "We should—our car—"

"Oh, come with me in mine," Emilia interrupts, her smile wide and familiar once again. He's always loved the way her eyes crinkle when she's happy, an infectious distraction. "I absolutely insist and neither of you can refuse."

*

Sophie is a vision. 

They’re far from the aisle, far from the front, but she is unmistakably lovely and her smile incandescent. Even in an ivory wedding dress she’s stuck with her heavy, dark eyes, smoky almost out to the cheekbone. It’s a perfect touch, so very _her_ , and he’s so proud, so happy. 

A hand touches his back, and he looks to see Taron watching him. His eyes are bright, and kind. An utterly open kindness and generosity. Qualities that make for the perfect scene partner, of course; but also—

It’s something he just loves about Taron. That endless capacity for empathy.

“I love weddings,” Taron says quietly. “Thank you.” And the urge to kiss him, selfishly kiss his straight friend in the middle of this very public place— oh, _oh_ , he thinks, and is more than grateful when the officiant begins to speak.

*

When Joe gives his vows, thoughtful and strange, big tears roll down his cheeks. He kisses Sophie, giddy-sweet, and Richard almost feels a pang of something like envy. 

Beside him, he can see Taron’s eyes watering. Their hands next to each other on the pew, fingers brushing. Richard’s skin twitches, and he keeps still until the applause. Uses it as an excuse to rest his hands, a safe distance, in his lap.

*

Richard has seen what money can buy - hell, Elton John taught him more than most - but the reception surprises him. Eclectic, different, untraditional. Undeniably Sophie, whose wedding planner never dared saying no. 

(The bar is inexplicably teeming with Coors Light, however, of _all things_.)

He loses Taron early when the photography team finds him and tugs him towards the wedding party. He sees men and women in black tugging Michelle and Emilia and Isaac and Alfie and he gets the idea. They congregate, lined up in a row with Joe, unfamiliar but welcome, pressed to Sophie’s side. It’s Michelle who makes the first joke about this particular family and weddings before the photo is taken, and they all laugh, and laugh, and laugh as the cameras click and flash. 

After, Maisie in her bridesmaid gown reaches up to get a proper hug and with a ribald look in her eye, she says, “You’re a gay icon now, big brother,” her faux northern accent a little rich. 

“Wasn’t I always?” he says, fond. 

“Careful with this lot tonight, then,” she replies, shrugging her shoulder in the direction of the increasingly loud revelry. “Joe knows ever so many repressed assholes, and you are a _dish_.” She laughs. “Unless your straight friend called dibs?” 

“He’s—”

“And Kit’s not here, so—”

It’s mean, and said meanly, and he watches her immediately regret it. Immediately raise her hand up and then press against her heart. “I’ve been drinking, I’m sorry. That was— I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not fucking my mate,” he says. “I don’t do that anymore,” he adds. 

She nods, seems tremulous, and then rushes forward to hug him again. “Fucking Sophie was the best idea I’ve ever had.” Quiet in his ear. “So don’t discount it just because it didn’t work out once.”

This isn’t exactly brand new information to Richard, but the shock of her saying it so openly makes him gape, mid-hug. He makes absolutely sure his face is pure sympathy when they pull apart, but Maisie looks so roguish he can’t help but let his mouth twitch into a smile. 

“Good luck,” Maisie says, reaching up to pat him semi-seriously on the shoulder, and then he blinks and she’s off into the party again, a strange little firework. 

Good luck, Richard thinks, could almost be a challenge.

*

He hunts for Taron in the crowd, a couple of glasses of champagne in his hands, and when he hears that familiar laugh, he surges forward. 

“—have you ever thought about stage musicals?” He can hear Nick saying. “I’ve done Les Miserables - twice, actually - and there’s nothing more challenging than singing on stage. Anyone can fake it in a studio.”

Richard arrives just in time to watch Taron’s reaction. All ease and the slightest hint of amusement. He hands him the glass of champagne, and Taron raises it to clink against Richard’s. Something twinges in the corner of his mouth.  

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Taron says, blithe as can be, “I mean, when I sang with Elton in Cannes that was pretty tough. You know. Singing a duet live on stage with Elton Hercules John. Gosh, and we did it again just a few weeks back at his sold out concert in—” and he snaps twice. 

“Brighton,” Richard adds, helpful. 

Nick misses a beat, and then finds it again. “Absolutely, you know, I was the same with Stevie Wonder. When you’re singing with a genius like that, it’s just, wow, you’re in awe, you know?”

“Mmm,” Taron says and takes a long drink of the champagne. Richard pointedly does not laugh. 

“Taron?” a voice says, and it’s the third one— Kevin. Kevin Jonas. There’s a quietly stunning woman a step behind him. “Taron, I’m Kevin,” he says, reaching out to shake his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, we love Kingsman,” he says. “Right, Nick?” 

Nick smiles, light.

Kevin continues, “Nick watches it all the time. It’s like his Frozen. I’d love to introduce you to my wife—”

*

He’s lost count of glasses of champagne - it is a wedding reception after all - so he has to excuse himself for a piss and a smoke. It’s Paris and it’s Hollywood, so he’s sure every balcony will be stuffed with well dressed people sucking down the toxins of their choice. A staffer points him to a back door, rattles off some vague directions in broken English. Smiles when Richard smiles, and says, “the true King in the North” before slipping away. 

His smile falls, just a little. 

He finds his way outside. The perfect little outlook; grimy and not well lit and obviously where staff go to smoke or take a call. He can have a smoke in peace—

“Dickie,” she says, and he thinks, _shit_ , followed shortly by: _of course._

He turns to see Sophie, her vape pen in her hand. She looks amused, and significantly less drunk that he would expect. 

“This is my secret place, go find your own,” he retorts. 

“Perfect place for a blow job,” she says.

“Not if you’re offering,” he says.

Her offended gasp turns into a giggle. “Come here,” she says and gives him a proper hug, a truly warm thing, and he kisses her on the cheek. “You having a good time?” she asks, genuine. “I paid for you to have a good time.”

“The best,” and he kisses her cheek again; so fond. 

“You’ll cream yourself when you taste the cake,” she says. “Mama J thought it was the worst one, but she was wrong, as always.” She takes a deep drag. “How’s your date?” 

“I left him with your brother in law,” Richard says. “The rude one.” And he straightens up. “And he’s not my date. He’s straight.” The word seems so silly, unnecessary. He feels like scratched vinyl, and regrets saying it. 

“Thank God for that. Nick’s absolutely losing it that you brought him, he’d suck Taron’s dick in a heartbeat.” 

When he raises his eyebrows, she mirrors the look. It’s all he can do but pull out his cigarette and light up. She looks at it like it’s Christmas morning and all the presents are hers. Her hand goes up, as if to reach for it, and she snatches it back. “This family would drive me to the real thing if it wasn’t for Joe.”

He leans back against the wall, takes a drag. “Love is a many splendored thing,” he says. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Sophie nods. “It is.” Soft. “It really is.” 

Looking up at the night sky, he breathes in. “You’d recommend it, then?” 

“With all my heart,” she says. She’s young and the bride, so she’s more than allowed certain histrionics tonight. But he believes her, nevertheless. And that twinge of jealousy, the _want_ for connection floods him. Makes him unsteady. It’s not something he thinks about too much, not usually. Not in the casual day to day; acting, the hustle. It’s not safe.

An interruption, but gently said: “You like him, Richard. I know you do. I can see why you do,” she says. “But I hope you’ll take care. Boys like him—”

“There are no boys like him,” he says, without even thinking it through. The words lingering out there; trapped between four walls and the sky.

She makes a tight smile. “Straight boys don’t realise what they do, how they break hearts.”

There’s some heat in his blood now. Creeping in, an insidious burn as much as his stomach is sinking. She’s right, _she’s right_ , but no—

“What, have you fucked a straight girl before and got your heart broken?” he says, unkind.

“I don’t know any straight girls,” she says, cool. “But I do know men. And I know you.”

The tone in her voice seems to knock out the wind in his sails. She was there at that party when he and Kit— she was there. “He can’t break my heart if I don’t feel—”

“Too late,” she says and he feels like curdled milk. And his face must show it because she gets close. Reaches for him and her small hand touches his arm. “I went through a hard patch—” She stops herself. “Okay, I’m still going through it, but it was really bad then. Joe told me that he couldn’t see me love him more than I loved myself.” She looks at him, hard. “You have to love yourself, Richard. Take care with him, don’t get caught up. Especially if he can’t—”

White noise in his ears, something brittle in his bones. “He’s just my mate.”

He’s said it so many times, and yet very suddenly, this feels like the first time he’s actually hearing it: self-defence. A deflection. 

Her gaze lingers, and then she pulls away. “I hear you,” she says. Puts the vape pen to her lips and sucks in. There’s a long silence between them that Richard hates immediately. It softens him as much as it makes things blur, obscure. He’s not quite sure of his own footing now that he can’t put words to his thoughts. 

It’s fight or flight, and honesty is a gaping maw, a charybdis that will unman him. 

He feels bad about stubbing out his cigarette on the curlicued iron rail, but he does it anyway. Drops it in the tiny pile of stubs below it. Steels himself. 

“I’m really happy for you, Soph,” he says, a truth and his way out. 

“I’m happy for me too,” she says, determined, staring out at the stars. He envies her, in that moment. Her candour, her sense of self, her clarity, even in the muddled mess of youth. The child he knew once is leagues past him now. Admirable. 

It’s an impulse. He leans in to kiss her cheek and she surprises him, turning, a chaste press of her lips against his. It’s friendly, not familiar, but he appreciates the affection anyway. “Be happy for you,” she says, patting his chest. 

He gives her a half smile, it’s all he can muster.

*

He’s in a fog, walking back into the reception when—

“Shall we dance?” Taron says, in that particular way of his: cheeky but not mocking, earnest but not without warmth. “You know I know you’ve got the moves.”

Richard frowns at him. He’s good at keeping the extent of his emotions off his face, and hopes his distress only looks like mild bemusement. “We can’t exactly tear up the dancefloor to John Legend.”

But Taron’s just smiling. Nods his head towards the slow promenade of swaying couples, heads on shoulders, palms on hips. “Come on. Dance with me, Dickie.”

“I—” Richard’s frown deepens, and Taron’s face falls, ever so slightly. Richard would be quite happy to never see his disappointment set in in real time ever again. “I can’t.”

Taron is maybe the most open human Richard has ever met. He’s not fragile, far from it; but there’s a vulnerability in how readily he throws open his heart. How easily he shows exactly what he’s thinking.

So it terrifies Richard that he doesn’t know what Taron’s angle is here. He feels like they’re having the same conversation in two different languages, half understood and only then with concerted effort.

Taron chews the inside of his cheek for a second. “Mate,” he says, with as much gravity as if he were enunciating Richard’s full name. “Can we talk?”

“Of course,” Richard murmurs.

“No, I mean—” he jerks his head, indicating the open double doors and quieter corridor beyond. 

“Right,” Richard swallows.

She’s not there but he can still feel Sophie’s eyes prickling the back of his neck as they weave between the crowd, Taron’s smile apologetic as he nudges them through. 

*

It’s emptier out here but hardly private. The enormous split staircase means a triple height ceiling, and every shuffling step or whisper seems amplified tenfold. 

Waiters glide past with trays of rosé balanced inhumanly on one palm. Their hard-soled brogues clack on the marblesque floor. Richard swallows and it sounds like thunder in his ears. Taron is leaning against the ornate balustrade; it must be digging into his back uncomfortably but the unease on his face seems all internal. 

“Look—” Taron starts, at the same time Richard says, “Taron—”

They both pause, gentleman-like. Richard laughs, low and unhappy, and nods for Taron to go first.

“Okay,” Taron breathes out. “Okay. Look. This is a date, right? I assumed this was a date.”

Richard’s heart twists weirdly in his chest. 

“This isn’t a date,” he says, completely sure that he means it this time.

“We’ve been flirting all weekend. You invited me to a _wedding_.”

Richard has immediately lost hold of whatever grip he had on this conversation. “As a mate, though,” he says, and hates how Taron reacts to that like a body blow.

“You never said,” Taron tries. “You never said it outright. You booked us one room.”

“I booked _me_ a room—” _Fuck_ , Richard thinks. _Fuck fuck fucking fuck._ “T, you’re _straight_.”

Taron lets out a strange noise, a gritted half-laugh. “I did offer to blow you. I could blow you right now if you—”

“Your sexuality is pretty well documented,” Richard says sharply, and at this point it even sounds to him like he’s trying to convince himself. Still, he knows it, he’s got the proof of it, Taron’s coyly apologetic interviews, _sorry to disappoint, boys!_  - as if that made any difference.

“So is yours,” Taron replies, and it’s cruel. They both know it’s cruel. As if coming out is that fucking easy. 

“You don’t like guys,” Richard hisses, kind of frustrated and kind of helpless. 

“I like you.” It could sound defensive but it doesn’t. Taron makes it sound so simple.

“Just because we made out on camera it doesn’t mean you’re into me,” Richard says, and it comes out a lot more brutal than he intends.

“I know you don’t think I’m that stupid.”

“I can’t do this again,” Richard manages, revealing far too much of himself. Sharp, jabbing memories of truncated kisses with Kit, the awful feeling of Kit’s too-soft cock in his mouth, a terrible blow job; bursts of uncomfortable laughter, apologies that weren’t quite sincere and then, abruptly, were. 

Taron knocks his heel rhythmically against the bottom step in a stifled kind of distress. He looks directly into Richard’s eyes.  “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

Richard had phrased it to Kit the exact same way.

“I can’t be your trial run on this—”

“Jesus Christ, Richard,” Taron spits, his anger finally flooding his voice, and then he takes one step forward, and then he and Richard are kissing. They’re kissing. 

He knows how it goes; the press of lips against lips, the slide of tongues, the touch of teeth. He knows what to expect, he knows how to do it. 

But all of that seems to fly out the window, crash into the ether, because kissing Taron is unlike anything else. And what he thought it would be from all those days kissing him on set, all a shadow to this. To really kissing him. 

He tastes so _sweet_. 

There was a certain enjoyment in kissing him on a sound stage surrounded by crew, Dexter politely giving direction. A little voyeuristic kick, but a safety net too: no matter how riled they got, it was all just pretend. And playing John Reid, god, what a lark, what a delicious role to be immersed in especially with Taron as a scene partner - staring up at him as if he were the sun. 

This— 

This is different. There is something terrifyingly real about this. Nothing planned, nothing choreographed, just Taron’s mouth insistent on his; Taron’s teeth bruising his bottom lip. He’s still angry, Richard thinks distantly, and Richard is angry himself, all his armour buckled on and ready to fight; to fend.

Taron pushes his thigh between Richard’s legs. It’s not delicate or tentative. He knows what he’s about. 

“I want you,” Taron murmurs, his words as warm as their breath, and the emphasis isn’t on _want_ , it’s on _you._ Something about that makes Richard’s stomach flip over. 

He feels suddenly like Taron’s been lobbing him under-arm throws this whole time and Richard’s flubbed every catch. Does he have a reputation for being suave? He doesn’t fucking deserve it if he does. 

Taron’s hand slips up from the back of his neck into his hair and holds on; the insistent pressure of his thigh against Richard’s dick isn’t enough to distract him from how good that feels, and Richard’s lips sigh open and Taron— 

God, this isn’t even the first time they’ve had their tongues in each other’s mouths, but it feels like it. It feels utterly new. 

Is it hours, is it seconds before—

A voice: “Rich—Richard—” and a strangled noise followed by a trepidatious cough. Richard tenses, his body suddenly paralysed. _Fuck, oh fuck, oh—_

With an infinite slowness, Taron pulls away from the kiss, gentle, gently. As if there isn’t an interruption, as if they’re the only two creatures in the world. And his eyes are so blue, so warm. Richard realises he’s been holding a breath and he lets it out. 

Taron turns his head almost comically. “Joe!” he says, and disengages just enough. “The man of the hour.” He looks once more at Richard before moving away and his wink is unmistakable. His hand outstretched. “Congratulations.”

“Likewise,” Joe says, looking from Taron to Richard and back to Taron before accepting the handshake. “Soph— we’ve been looking for you. Both of you,” he says. He smiles. “Elton. We want to sing some Elton John,” he says, “And we can’t do it without you.” Something impish rises in his expression. “Wouldn’t be right.”

Richard wonders if Sophie thinks she’s rescuing him from something.

With a shimmy of his shoulders, Taron reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out sunglasses — not too ridiculous but fitting to the task. “I’m all yours, Jonas,” he says grandly.

But he looks back at Richard, and there’s something searing in it. It’s hard not to take a step back, improve his footing, but he doesn’t want to look as suckerpunched as he feels.

( _Too late_ , he thinks, as Taron leans in, imperiously, possessively, and presses a simple and very public kiss to his lips.)

*

Tiny Dancer, Crocodile Rock, Saturday Night, Bennie; it’s a raucous set, deliciously sung, and he feels hoarse from it. His smile is impossible to shake, despite his wired fear, simply impossible. Sophie keeps looking to Nick at the piano, ordering him to play another song, and though he can’t manage Elton’s delicate fingerwork, he can pick out the chords, give them enough to work with.

Taron is all showman. He loathes, Richard knows, being asked to spin a verse or two in an interview, but this is a gift, sweetly generous, an indulgence to the couple’s wishes. He switches up the lyrics - _me and Sophie had so much fun! -_ drawing Sophie and Joe into a jazzy little jive, pulling Richard close into his waist every time he croons _hold me closer, Tiny Dancer—!_

Richard stumbles jovially through the lyrics, leans into the mic in Taron’s hand. Richard could have bowed out early, let actual singers own the crowded stage but Taron keeps nearby and won’t let him edge towards the steps. Won’t let him go.

It’s lovely, but it’s not— 

Sophie leads the drunken crowd in a chorus of hollered _Bennie_ s, and Richard can see Taron’s eyes watering, joyful, soaking up the atmosphere. There’s sweat on his forehead, making his hair cling, and his glasses are slipping down the bridge of his burnished nose. Taron catches his gaze abruptly, and Richard realises he’s staring, but in a moment of almost frantic defiance, he lets himself stare. Looking away would be too significant.

Taron puts his fingers on Richard’s wrist, his thumb over Richard’s drubbing pulse-point. Leans in easily. “Shall we make a move, yeah?” he murmurs, soft.

There’s still a chance to brush all this off as the giddy product of champagne and bad decisions, that intricate weirdness he always feels when the Wolf Pack is back together.

“Yeah,” Richard swallows.

He gets close to the piano, catches Nick’s eye. Mouths a song title and tilts his head towards Joe. It’s a strange expression he receives in return, but Nick’s fingers lift, and then fall, and the opening chords of Your Song begin. 

The room quiets; every eye wide, every heart open.

Richard watches as Taron hands Joe the microphone. “This one’s for you, mate,” he says. He’s so kind, and so warm. 

It’s lovely, when Joe begins to sing. His voice cracked with emotion, his hand reaching for Sophie as he kneels in front of her. They’re so young, Richard thinks, and both still so unsure of their place in the world; but not with each other. They have each other.

He sings beautifully.

For a long time, everyone is still. Only Nick’s hands moving across the piano keys, the incline of Joe’s head as he sings; the rise and fall of Sophie’s chest as she cries, quietly.

And then Richard notices Taron take the smallest step towards him. Carefully take off his sunglasses. His voice is low and calm and even, just for the two of them. 

“Call the car,” he says and Richard shivers. 

*

The Paris roads seem almost as busy at night as they do by day. Taron’s murmuring about the last time he was here, two years back, a barrage of Kingsman press and his mum swooning about the City of Love. Richard finds he’s not really listening to what Taron’s saying at all; just the pleasing lilt of his voice.

Taron is holding his hand loosely on the cool leather of the back seat. 

Taron is holding his hand.

*

Richard has no idea how it’s meant to play out when they get back to the hotel. He’s had giddy one-night stands before, girls who demand to be kissed in the elevator even before reaching the room, guys who crowded him against the hotel room door as soon as it was closed, staking a greedy claim. 

He and Taron are still dressed to the nines, almost but not quite dishevelled. The corridors are all placid, a 3 am lull between the bartenders clocking off and the kitchen staff creeping in with trays of pastries and coffee. This plush, enclosed world seems calm in a way that Richard cannot, right now, even fathom.

Taron’s not goading him, but their littlest fingers keep brushing and catching as they wind their way to the room.

He needs a cigarette, very badly, and just as badly needs to kiss Taron again.

Everything in the suite feels slightly weird. Curated luxury, carefully cool; the curtains drawn back to let in the city light, twinkling like it knows everyone’s secrets. Their suitcases have been tidied up as a pair, side by side, Taron’s boots nestling beside them and Richard’s jacket hung on the closet door behind, a domestic sort of tableaux that Richard’s reading far too much into. What do they look like? A couple of mates? Minted young lovers on a romantic getaway? 

Awkwardly, unsure and needing something to do with his hands, he reaches for his smokes and lighter. “Don’t do it,” Taron says suddenly, “If you taste of cigarettes I’ll only end up gagging for one.”

Richard can’t decide whether to apologise or joke back and Taron, inordinately, magnificently compassionate, gives him a soft, toothy smile. Just says, “I am going to kiss you again.”

“Are you, now.”

“Yes,” Taron says, light, stepping forward. “Now.”

Richard remembers Kit just sort of waiting stiffly to be kissed. And then Taron’s warm lips are on his, a pleased murmur in the back of his throat, and Richard decides there and then that he isn’t going to think about Kit for one fucking minute more.

This is different again. This isn’t Taron trying to prove something that Richard still hasn’t quite figured out, it isn’t fizzing anger and bruised lips just in case there’s no second chance. Taron is kissing him perfectly leisurely, and Richard is quite happy to meet his pace. He’s heavy with his tongue - still _so_ sweet, champagne and sugar - but not in that over-eager way Richard’s put up with before. Taron seems happy to lick slowly against Richard’s teeth and tongue, pull back, nip at his bottom lip, lathe it again, soft and wet. 

Richard needs urgently to touch him, hold him. He cups Taron’s jaw, rolling the lobes of Taron’s ears between his knuckle and thumb: velvety and pliable on one side, hard diamond on the other. It’s odd enough to make Taron grin against his mouth and that’s—

That’s something Richard likes very, very much. To kiss Taron and have Taron be kind of delighted by it.

“I’ve dreamt about this,” Taron sighs, just on the cusp of embarrassment.

“Yeah, right.”

“Yeah,” Taron tells him mockingly. “ _Right._ ”

Richard blinks, taken aback. He realises with a jolt that he’s never once fantasised about Taron, not even after rolling around in bed with him for two days in front of the camera. It was too dangerous a pipe dream, even for idle late-night wanking or just a bit of fun. He’s forced himself to forget the luscious feeling of Taron’s legs dragging between his, naked and pleasantly thick, and suddenly Richard’s desperate to remember. Desperate to learn it again. 

There’s been an inordinately inappropriate amount of talk about blow jobs tonight.

“I think I want to suck your dick,” Richard admits.

“Well, what d’you know,” Taron laughs. “I think I want to suck yours.”

Undressing is easy and surreal. Always awkward, Richard’s hair sticking up at all angles as he pulls his dress shirt over his head, barely unbuttoned, Taron trying to finagle his socks off while he’s still standing, hopping to keep his balance on one foot. Richard still feels on edge, as though any second now someone will yell _cut!_ and the scene will end, he and Taron just mates again, just peers, breezy enough but a professional distance between them. Richard had always made the effort to roll off him between takes, give him space, but after a while Taron had just pressed his palm against the small of Richard’s bare back and said breathlessly, “You’re good, you’re good, I don’t want to lose this mark—”

The bed really is stupidly big. Richard has to practically crawl across it to reach Taron, sitting boyish and cross-legged in the plump middle of the duvet. 

He wants to kiss all the places on Taron’s skin he didn’t get to before. The un-cinematic places: that agonising mole dead centre under his chin, above his navel, the heels of his feet, his pale underarm where the skin never manages to tan. Richard _wants_ , a year’s worth of the stuff that he never allowed himself to acknowledge, and it floods his chest like a wave that threatens, for a second or two, to submerge him entirely. 

“T,” he breathes, his fingertips skittering over Taron’s chest. Not as soft as it was back then, but pleasantly defined. 

“Jesus, Richard,” Taron sighs back. “I really fucking like you, d’you know that?”

He can’t think of a safe response to that, so Richard latches his mouth onto Taron’s nipple instead, wet and sucking, holding him still at the hips. It’s not just a little nip either; he can feel Taron firming up under his tongue, the heave of his lungs under his skin as he gasps. “Oh my god,” Taron murmurs. “This is new. Wow, okay, this is new.”

Richard hums against his skin, making sure he can feel the vibrations, and likes it a whole lot when Taron rises up to meet his mouth, his chest swelling, chasing. He grazes his teeth over it, not entirely gently, and by then he’s craving Taron’s lips again. Those long, thick kisses, open-mouthed and delicious.  

He can feel Taron urging him back, and Richard lets himself be led, leaning against the frankly ridiculous amount of pillows at the top of the bed. He doesn’t quite mean to end up with Taron perched between his spread knees, but Taron’s massaging his calves gently, his hands sliding up, up, up and down again, and his smile is wet and lop-sided, and his cheeks are flushed, smudgy pink. Also, he’s hard. Like, extremely-turned-on no-question-about-it hard. 

Something unclenches in Richard’s chest, quietly relieved. 

“You’ve really never been with a guy?” Richard asks, cautious and curious.

“Nope,” Taron says, smiling at him dreamily. His eyes flick down to Richard’s dick, and there’s nothing at all tense or uncomfortable about the set of his shoulders, the arch of his brow. He shuffles back on the bed, settling himself deep between Richard’s thighs. 

“You don’t have to—” Richard starts, because he thinks he should. 

“Kindly shut up,” Taron replies breezily. “I’m concentrating, here.”

And then he wraps his fingers around the base of Richard’s dick, just tight enough to really _feel_ it, considers for a split-second, and then puts the whole head of it right into his mouth. Presses his tongue against it, shyly experimental. 

It’s an acquired taste, Richard knows, and God, sucking dick isn’t for everyone, male or female, he knows that too, and he remembers vividly his first experience of it, on his knees in the dingy loos at Compton’s, hardly romantic, hardly seminal—

But Taron hums, self-satisfied, around his dick and, with no small amount of excitement, blows him.

Richard’s fists curl into the sheets. He tries extremely hard not to buck up into Taron’s mouth, his hips and thighs shaking with the effort of it. Richard can feel the prickle of sweat breaking out all over his skin. There’s something bizarrely _nice_ about the way Taron’s sucking him off, carefully, tentatively, clearly getting a kick out of the act itself rather than just as a means to an end. 

He says something, completely garbled by the cock in his mouth.

“Oh my god,” Richard hisses. “What?”

Taron pulls back with a slick _pop_ that makes Richard slump his head back, panting.

“I said fuck me,” Taron clarifies blithely, and then goes straight back to it. Richard frantically tries to decide whether that’s a cuss or a request and really, really hopes it’s the latter because immediately his hips cant up, desperately seeking the cloying heat at the back of his throat, and, to his horror, Taron gags, swallows, pulls back, and bursts into choking laughter. 

“To my credit,” he says, his eyes watering, “I tried.”

Richard’s first instinct is to apologise. But Taron looks so damn proud of himself, sitting back on his heels like that, that he doesn’t give in to it. Grabs Taron’s messy chin instead and drags him in for a kiss. 

“I’m gonna show you up now,” he growls, almost surprised at his own lust.

“Yeah, I thought you might,” Taron says, fake sulking, and then he grins again. He just can’t seem to stop grinning tonight. “But can I finish what I—”

“Soon,” Richard says, and manhandles him, shifting him into a better position for this sort of thing and settling back on his haunches. Richard gives Taron’s dick an appraising look - not his first time seeing, but his first time _looking -_ and likes what he sees, but he hesitates, a split second, when he notices the white mark where Taron’s been biting his bottom lip. Nerves. 

Then Taron clocks him pausing, and licks his lip, and grins. “This is going to be good, isn’t it?” he asks, breathless. 

His giddiness is catching, and Richard finds himself grinning back. Taron might know the theory, but Richard’s had practice.

“So good,” he says. 

Richard gives Taron’s dick the courtesy of a few introductory strokes, licks over the head to get him nice and wet; and then deep-throats him.

“Oh, fuck _,”_ Taron gasps. 

Richard hums around his dick in agreement.

“Oh, _fuck_ , fuck me, Richard—”

Richard finds he quite likes the sound of his name dragged involuntarily from Taron’s chest. He keeps him buried deep as long as he can - a neat party trick but not entirely practical in the long term - and then eases up, breathes in deep through his nose, and sucks Taron off the old fashioned way: nice and wet, a good rhythm, plenty of tongue. 

He feels comfortable here, lying between Taron’s thighs. Not just because he knows what he’s doing, but some kind of strange, existential comfort. He and Taron have always looked out for each other. He just makes Richard feel safe.

“I have an amazing arse and you’re completely neglecting it,” Taron pants.

Richard drags the pad of his tongue all the way along Taron’s dick as he pulls off, smacks his lips and relishes Taron’s earthy moan. When he looks up, he’s rewarded with Taron’s flushed-pink chest, sweat on his neck and stomach, looking, frankly, fuck-drunk already. “I’m busy,” he drawls.

“ _Dickie._ ”

Richard smiles at him then, a little tentatively, a little kindly. “I think we should take it slow.” 

Taron rolls his eyes, obnoxious on purpose. “I’m not asking you to fist me, Richard.”

That earns him a bark of unexpected laughter, and Richard clambers up, hands either side of Taron’s broad shoulders, kisses him messily in lieu of a comeback. Cartoonish kisses turn serious in seconds, Richard can’t help himself, and then their mouths are seeking each other in earnest, Richard’s palms finding Taron’s jaw, Taron’s nails digging into the meat of his back, pleasantly sore. 

“I want you,” Taron murmurs happily, and wow, Richard thinks he might never tire of hearing that. 

Slowly, obviously, with plenty of time and space for Taron to change his mind, Richard brings his right hand to his mouth and slips his two forefingers inside. Taron hisses, a lusty, low noise. “That’s hot,” he says darkly, “that’s seriously—are you serious? Let me—” and he grabs Richard’s wrist, tugging at it, and takes over the work, sucking on Richard’s fingers eagerly. 

He’s right. It is hot. And Richard feels, almost for the first time, like it’s totally, perfectly okay to think that Taron is hot. He doesn’t need to disclaim it, doesn’t need to pretend it’s objective, like, sure, anyone would find Taron hot, who wouldn’t? 

 _He_ thinks Taron is hot. Him, personally. 

“T,” Richard says, quite seriously, as Taron lathes at his knuckles. “I think I really fucking like you too.”

Taron looks like he doesn’t quite know whether to throw back a joke, or say something embarrassingly earnest. So instead, he slips Richard’s fingers out of his mouth and kisses his palm, close-mouthed and sweet. 

“It’s gonna feel weird,” Richard admits.

“No it won’t,” Taron replies, utterly calm. “Not if it’s you.”

Oh, he really, _really_ fucking likes Taron.

He kisses Taron through it all. Barely leaves a second when their lips aren’t touching. Slow, gentle little things while he eases in a first slick finger; headier as they find a rhythm; not much more than mouthing at each other, breathing against each other’s lips, once Richard crooks his wrist and fucks in deep, earnest. Taron is murmuring, begging pleas Richard can’t quite make out, and all Richard wants to do is kiss him - chin, jaw, neck, mouth, _mouth_ \- and keep him happy for a moment longer.

He makes space when Taron’s fingers hunt frantically for their dicks. Loves the feeling of Taron’s hand wrapped around them both, the shift of his cock under Richard’s as he works them, completely without finesse, just desperate need now, utter desire. His muttered curses turn into Richard’s name, no louder than a breath, and Richard eases his wrist back, pushes back in, two fingers now, and kisses Taron once more through the strain - momentary - and the waves of unfamiliar pleasure. 

It’s wildly heady to feel Taron tense up from the inside the second before he comes. 

“ _Fuck—”_ he sobs, and Richard just murmurs softly, “I’ve got you, T. I’ve got you.”

He ruts against the mess Taron’s made of his own stomach. That’s enough, that’s more than enough to tip him over the edge. Richard’s orgasm isn’t noisy or mind-blowing, but it’s good, it’s good, a profound pleasure he feels right in the marrow of his bones, still shakily kissing Taron even as he shudders right through it.

This—

This wasn’t how he expected the evening to play out. But by Christ he’s glad it did.

*

It must be four in the morning by now, at least.

“Is it weird if I tell you I’m genuinely excited to have your dick inside me in the very near future?” Taron asks, almost thoughtful.

“Yes,” Richard replies, his eyes closed. “Is it weird if I tell you the feeling’s mutual?”

“Yes,” Taron says. He sounds so tired, and so, so fucking happy, and Richard, for once, knows exactly how that feels.

*

It’s the traffic that wakes him. The distant, angry bustle of the Concorde at rush hour, a blunt chorus amidst the morning birdsong and the carpet-muffled sounds of early checkouts at the hotel. 

Richard has that distinct hangover that comes from going overboard on the bubbles; nothing unmanageable but his head feels cloudy and stuffed, his limbs a heavy annoyance. He tongues the roof of his mouth and it’s cloyingly dry. His jacket, strewn on the back of the desk chair, is covered in glittering little specks of confetti he can’t even remember from last night.

It’s in Taron’s hair too. Catching the faint morning light through the flimsy gap in the curtains. Richard knows this because Taron’s head is resting calmly on his chest. He’s still in that peacefully unselfconscious kind of sleep, his mouth open and pressed, lopsided and loose, against Richard’s skin. Richard finds his fingers tangled in Taron’s skewiff hair.

He stays very still for a moment.

And then he very softly strokes his thumb over Taron’s temple. 

Richard feels like it’s incredibly important not to wake Taron. Because if he wakes up, he’ll get up, and then he’ll go somewhere that isn’t— right here. 

He supposes they will, eventually, have to move. Taron wanted a holiday, after all: playing tourist under the great legs of the Eiffel Tower, braving escargot drenched in garlic butter, champagne from Champagne, maybe even a mosey around the Louvre, all of it, the whole fucking thing and not just the pyramid.

Or maybe they’ll just—

Call reception, innocuously request no turndown service for the next two days, and fuck, gloriously, at their absolute leisure.

He’s okay with that too.

Under his pillow, shoved there late last night, his phone pings obnoxiously. Taron frowns, shifting. He doesn’t roll over, doesn’t untangle their warm legs, just groans and buries his face in Richard’s armpit. “‘S too early.”

“You’re alright,” Richard says softly.

He can feel Taron’s nose butting against his ribs, and then, gentler, Taron’s mouth, pressing a lazy kiss there. No stammered apology. No getaway excuses. He just settles back into Richard’s arms. 

Richard sighs out.

There’s three unread messages on his phone. The first from Sophie - a photo of the two of them, a selfie he just about remembers taking on the stage. Her smudged eyeliner and ruby-red grin, something manic in his own eyes, and, blurry in the background, Taron watching them absently. Smiling.

He saves it.

The second is a text from Maisie.

_you absolute champion_

The third, the latest, three minutes old, is from—

It’s from Kit. 

Richard doesn’t read it for a moment. Slips his other hand down from Taron’s hair to the nape of his neck, the notches of his spine and the firm, loose muscles in his shoulders. He seems so at peace, in a way that Richard envies. 

He breathes in deeply, very slowly, careful not to jostle Taron from his shallow doze. 

_Hey you._

it says.

_Hey you._

_How are you?_

_Congrats on Rocketman, Rose says it’s genius. She covets the kimono you wear in one scene._

_Awful that I had to miss everyone yesterday. Sophie sent pics. What a stunner._

_I’m doing good._

_I have my phone back._

_So, we could chat sometime._

_If you’d like._

Richard reads it through twice, and then once more for good measure. Out in the corridor, he can hear the metallic ting of the breakfast trolley making its rounds. Horns blare almost constantly from the Concorde; the occasional flurry of harried French arguments. Close to his ear, Taron’s breath is steady again, slipped easily back into sleep. 

He doesn’t even debate his reply. It’s just so easy to tap out, one-handed, _sounds good mate_ , and then switch his phone to silent. Put it face down on the bedside table. 

He breathes out and feels—he feels whole.  

Richard turns, rearranging Taron carefully in his arms and shuffling down under the duvet. Half conscious, Taron nuzzles into his collarbone, making himself quite comfortable. Richard’s head sinks back into the pillow. Really, realistically, he should get up, find some water, brush his teeth at the very least.

But he’d rather just stay in bed with Taron.

So he does. 

Doesn’t even think twice about it. 


End file.
